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When Julius Caesar was murdered, the power vacuum was filled by a triumvirate: Mark Antony, the flamboyant soldier interested only in plunder; Octavius, Caesar’s named heir, but not even a citizen – and the least known of all, Marcus Lepidus, an old-fashioned patrician idiot who believed blindly in the ideals of Rome, but was hopelessly inept at both war and politics. Told from Lepidus’s point of view, this masterly tragicomedy charts both the seminal events of the post-Caesarian era, and the career of a man locked into his own conviction that what would preserve his line must also be good for Rome. It is funny, fascinating, and ultimately moving. ‘Duggan looks upon the past with a connoisseur’s relish of villainy and violence . . . An extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy’ New York Times
About the author
Historian, archaeologist and novelist Alfred Duggan wrote historical fiction and non-fiction about a wide range of subjects, in places and times as diverse as Julius Caesar’s Rome and the Medieval Europe of Thomas Becket.
Although he was born in Argentina, Duggan grew up in England, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. After Oxford, he travelled extensively through Greece and Turkey, visiting almost all the sites later mentioned in his books. In 1935 helped excavate Constantine’s palace in Istanbul.
Duggan came to writing fiction quite late in his life: his first novel about the First Crusade, Knight in Armour, was published in 1950, after which he published at least a book every year until his death in 1964. His fictional works were bestselling page-turners, but thoroughly grounded in meticulous research informed by Duggan’s experience as an archaeologist and historian.
Duggan has been favourably compared to Bernard Cornwell as well as being praised in his own right as 'an extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy.' (New York Times).
Summary
When Julius Caesar was murdered, the power vacuum was filled by a triumvirate: Mark Antony, the flamboyant soldier interested only in plunder; Octavius, Caesar’s named heir, but not even a citizen – and the least known of all, Marcus Lepidus, an old-fashioned patrician idiot who believed blindly in the ideals of Rome, but was hopelessly inept at both war and politics.
Told from Lepidus’s point of view, this masterly tragicomedy charts both the seminal events of the post-Caesarian era, and the career of a man locked into his own conviction that what would preserve his line must also be good for Rome. It is funny, fascinating, and ultimately moving.
‘Duggan looks upon the past with a connoisseur’s relish of villainy and violence . . . An extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy’ New York Times
